Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis

Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis

The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2% tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise £250bn a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested.

In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Spain say a 2% tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events.

“It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece.

  • @[email protected]English
    94•7 months ago

    If taxation were done properly there would be no billionaires. They are a symptom of a broken tax system.

    • HugucinogensEnglish
      15•7 months ago

      So, I’m assuming you are in support of a 2% wealth tax?

      Sorry if I sound paranoid, just checking. Tone is hard to convey in text.

      • @chiliedoggEnglish
        9•7 months ago

        2 percent for those who would dip below a billion.

        Just make a billion dollars a hard limit. Once you achieve that wealth, you aren’t allowed anymore. If it’s because of stock values, then any shares after you hit a billion are distributed among employees (including “contract workers” who they pretend aren’t employees).

        If it’s in cash money anything over a billion goes to the government.

        If it’s in real estate properties are seized and sold at auction according to the land use. For housing, it’s only sold to individual people who will use the property as a sole homestead. For small offices it’s sold to businesses with a single location.

        If it’s art it’s donated to a museum in the art’s place of origin.

        • @DreamlandLividityEnglish
          0•7 months ago

          So what I am hearing: buy shit in a different country than the one you are running, where you can’t tax it. No investment and jobs for your economy.

          Also, how do you determine the value of an ltd? Not all companies have shares and share price.

          • @EurekaStockadeEnglish
            4•7 months ago

            Private companies are valued all the time, typically it’s by calculating a multiple of EBITDA, with some variations for particular industries

            • @DreamlandLividityEnglish
              0•7 months ago

              First of all, the article clearly states Fidelity owns shares, hence it is not fully private. Second of all, you are talking about the assessment of the company that holds the shares. Are you suggesting an honor system where everyone estimates their own wealth?

              • Flying SquidMEnglish
                2•7 months ago

                Private companies can still sell shares. They’re just not publicly traded.

                • @DreamlandLividityEnglish
                  0•7 months ago

                  Ok, technically you are right although since Fidelity is publicly traded, it is a somewhat special case IMO. That is what I meant by it not being fully private. If it was owned ultimately by an individual, there would be no reason for such disclosure.

                  More importantly, this does not change my argument about it being a self reported value.

    • @forceEnglish
      3•7 months ago

      More like a symptom of a broken broad economic system. In all forms of capitalism, it is a given that much wealth accumulates in the few. It’s a system where resources are distributed based on capital, and capital is a resource, and it’s a system where those with more capital have more voting power both economy-wise and politics-wise. There is no such thing as a capitalist economy that has even wealth distribution long-term, it was quite plainly a system created for the sole purpose of keeping those with power in power – this isn’t an exaggeration, the guys who basically created/popularized modern capitalism and are the basis for all the writings and philosophy of the “founders of capitalism” were post-french revolution aristocrats who wished to push a system where they could keep their power instead of having it taken while also not having their heads chopped off.

      Even with the best taxation capitalism can offer, there is no solution to the capitalist problem. It’s a system that requires there to be suffering underclasses and carefree upperclasses. It requires an immoral social hierarchy to exist. The systems that reduce the damage of this innately bad hierarchy while still maintaining it (welfare corporatism, for example) are incredibly unstable over the long-term and inevitably result in a populace that want to tear it down. The people who receive the most benefits from welfare & social safety in a capitalist society are often the ones that are the quickest to tear it down (them, and the elite) and guide us back to right-wing feudalism.

      Billionaires might maybe go away if we “properly” tax, but there is only so much you can do to patch up a fundamentally broken system. The countries with the most wealth equality and highest wealth taxes also happen to be countries with a ton of megacorporations and/or billionaires… Switzerland, Scandinavian countries, Finland, Germany, Australia all have the highest wealth equality while all being on the top 15 for billionaires per capita excluding extremely small nations. Plus those countries have a tendency for alt-right movements to pop up, a few even more by proportion than the US…

      TL;DR capitalism bad socialism good eat the rich